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MYTHS OF CREATION
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1. Thesis
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The most commonly shared cosmovision developed by mythological traditions during the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages was the belief that the world has undergone multiple stages of periodically fluctuating growth and development — in the course of which chaotic catastrophes regularly upset the cosmic order, and thereby set in motion the basic foundations for a new creation.
The overwhelming congruity and the sheer volume of parallel beliefs and habits found in widely different regions of the world, however, have often raised questions notoriously difficult to answer or meaningfully explain. When early scholars and philosophers began quibbling critically over the nature and meaning of these myths at the very beginning of modern science more than 2,500 years ago, at the center of their confusion burned irresolvable questions about whether or not their seemingly improbable contents had any real basis in actual historical events; — and despite the proliferation of cultural studies and critical theories of comparative mythology that have continued to broaden our scope of inquiry since the time of the Renaissance forward, beyond the former sprawls of Greece and Rome to the rest of the worldwide variety, these questions have nevertheless remained just as hotly contested and problematic to address as ever. This is not to say that there are no noticeable distinctions between the cosmovisions of different myth-making cultures; nor that the wide variety of differences found between them suggests that any one single version of events is older and more true than the rest, with the others being but derivative copies that came later. — The problem is that, in spite of their many differences, so many astounding similarities remain — as if the myths of all mankind were once complementary parts that formerly sang the common strains of a single symphony, expressive of a more universal harmony of beliefs than most heretofore have dared to suppose. . . . |